Every vote counts or so the refrain goes. Unfortunately in our
present voting system this is just not so as nearly one in five
voters sees their vote rendered useless while the other 80% battle
it out to see who gets the most. And as we have seen in recent
years parties have won with only 39% and 42% of voters choosing
them.
What ensues is that 20% of the people have absolutely no
representation of their views and 40% of the people are dictating
to the other 60%. In order to alleviate this many people are not
voting for their first choice party anymore. Feeling that vote
would be wasted, they hold their noses and vote for a party whose
platform they like less but who they think has a better chance of
defeating a party whose platform they dislike even more.
Wouldn't it be a true democracy if every vote counted? One could
vote for what he or she believed in and rest assured that that vote
would not be cast into the meaningless pile but, added to others,
would actually be transformed into representation in Parliament?
Voter turnout in general has plummeted in recent years due in part
to many young people feeling disconnected to the political process.
I work with many young people and polled five of them (aged 23-32)
last week on their voting practices. Only one of them votes and
when I asked why the others don't they responded the issues debated
are not relevant to them and "you can't do anything anyway."
Young people today do not feel that the democratic process is a
cornerstone of our society and we need to find a way to change
that. One way to make the decision makers of tomorrow feel their
views are being heard and represented is by changing our voting
system from a polarized one where only A or B has a real chance of
winning to one where a wider range of views is represented.
The present system may have worked well in the past where we had a
less diverse society and more homogeneous views but in our present
world we are used to more choice and variety in everything we do.
Apples, oranges and bananas are good but when you add peaches,
grapes and strawberries you have a colorful and flavorful fruit
salad.
One way to make the democratic process fairer to all and ensure
representation of all views would be to adopt a proportional
representation voting system. Many of the world's democracies use
this system- more than 70 at last count. I believe the Mixed Member
System [MMP] offers a good model -it gives fair
representation without being awkward or unwieldy to use. It is one
that could be explained to voters easily. And because local MLA's
are still elected in the same way as they are now it offers a
familiar and easy transition to a fairer system which also includes
party seats based on percentage of popular vote.
I urge the members of the Citizens Assembly to consider these
factors if it chooses to recommend change and propose a new voting
system go to referendum. Given the oft reported fact that many
young people do not presently vote, the referendum will likely be
decided by older voters. I believe the ease of a change will be
paramount in acceptance of a new voting system.
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